Podcast 543-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-41

Podcast 543-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-41. All new content for this week’s radio show. I devoted some time in Podcast 541 to the state by state polls. So, for the radio show, rather than excerpt segments from that podcast, given the fact that new polls are being taken almost daily, I decided to do an all new radio show with updates where applicable for the state by state polls. As I said in previous podcasts, the election of the president in the United States is not a popular vote affair. When you vote for an individual candidate, you are voting for a slate of electors, already chosen by the state parties, controlled by state election law. These are the people who actually vote for the president. While no elector has ever been prosecuted for voting their conscience so to speak, there have been faithless electors. And as much crap as the electoral system takes, there have only been two elector incidents in our history. Both of these happened in the early days of the republic (1796 and 1800) when the system called for the ‘runner up’ for president to be the vice president. Florida in 2000 was not an electoral college issue, since the electoral college had not voted. Florida in 2000 was a local vote counting issue that was litigated all the way up to the US Supreme Court, which ended up deciding the issue for George W. Bush. The US is a representative republic, not a direct democracy. Both parties want to tinker with the electoral college. Hillary Clinton has said we should amend the constitution to abolish the electoral college. Republicans want to tinker with it by pushing something called the ‘National Popular Vote’ which is essentially slaving all fifty states’ electoral votes to the popular vote in that state. Currently 29 states require the electors to vote for the winner of the popular vote. If the 2016 cycle leaves us with any impression, it is that mob rule in politics is not a good thing. My preference is to go back to letting the electors be the electors, and by the way, to letting state legislatures appoint US Senators as well. So, given the electoral factor in the US presidential election, focusing on national popularity polls is pretty much a waste of time. At this time, State by State polls do not paint a pretty picture for Republican Donald Trump, or even for the Republican effort to hold the US Senate. Republicans don’t like to hear bad news but there it is. Can Trump pull it out? Yes, but listen to the podcast to find out where he has to put his efforts in the next few weeks before the election. Whether you think of the starting gun as the primary season, the conventions, Labor Day or two weeks before election day, the Republicans are the underdogs at this point in time and they have their work cut out for them, all in this brand new Podcast 543-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-41. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Karow Contracting.

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New Thinking Part II – Podcast 453

New Thinking Part II. Tyranny of The State? Browsing through today’s headlines yields a mix of factional outrage and emotion. Whether it’s the President issuing executive orders to ‘end’ mass shootings, or activist ranchers from Nevada showing up in Oregon to occupy a federal wildlife facility, or the UK parliament debating whether to ‘keep Donald Trump out’, it seems like the political world has gone crazy. With more and more people doing anything and everything to get on TV, or get clicks, eyeballs, ears, or supporters to show up at controlled events, one wonders whether the proverbial mob, feared most by the founders, has finally reared its ugly head. The second installment of the Bob Davis Podcast series ‘New Thinking’ looks at the desire factions seem to have to coerce ‘someone’ to ‘do something’ and the hypocrisy implicit in those demands. More ‘action’ these days is being taken by courts, unelected councils and boards controlling huge sums of money, their own police forces, are issuing edicts local towns and villages have to comply with. Local princes hold councils, in secret and behind closed doors to pound elected officials into submission. Protests are mounted by factional fronts with hashtag names and shadowy backing, all with the goal of dominating local or national television coverage. Presidential candidates vow to reverse executive orders of previous presidents, make promises that can’t and won’t be kept, and set unrealistic goals. Aren’t the people in this country supposed to be in charge? Isn’t the government supposed to protect our rights? How do we get things back on track when people operate on loose facts, when debate is a contest for the most slicing snarky comment, and name calling is the order of the day? Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and X Government Trucks.

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Podcast 378

Mercury Retrograde. Astrologists say when Mercury goes ‘retrograde’ it wreaks havoc with mechanical and electronic equipment, makes communications difficult and puts teeth in Murphy’s Law. In this case ‘retrograde’ means to go backwards. Now, Mercury does not go backwards; its orbit around our sun does not change one iota, but it supposedly ‘appears’ to be moving backward in the sky. What does a mercury retrograde do to a fifteen year old ambulance, repurposed as a mobile podcast studio, traveling across the country? Listen to this podcast and find out. From Illinois to Indiana, visiting an old friend, with ambitious plans to install Ham and CB radio communications, and WIFI Antenna. Attempting to this, we encountered nothing but problems. Oddly enough, Mercury Retrogrades are supposed to be good for making plans and catching up with old friends, finding good deals, and resting up. While most women seem to have a hundred ‘best friends’, men pretty much have two, or one. It’s great to hang out with someone who has known you since you were a kid; someone you haven’t talked to in decades, but you pick up right where you left off. Lest some readers decry all this reliance on astrology, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between the hokum of the stars and the hokum of today’s economists, who despite accolades, fur hats, and purple capes, can’t seem to figure out whether the US economy is growing, not growing, or contracting. Even worse, every ‘news’ story you read on the subject seems to repeat one fairy tale or outright lie, over and over again. Don’t worry though, no one’s looking at economic stories, they’re too busy counting the Republican candidates for President and getting lost in the details of a presidential campaign that has come too early, and too loudly for any civilized people. While the news media covers this political circus, the real political circus is about to pass a trade law — supported by the “Chambers of Italian Fascism” — Americans are forced to turn to Julian Assange and Wikileaks for the details, which suggest a far reaching agreement bigger than NAFTA with provisions that have little to do with free trade. How is your congressman voting? While the FBI circles over our cities in unmarked civilian planes, listening to our cell phone conversations, and Republican congress is also about to pass a ‘patch’ that will save Obama Care if key provisions are struck down by the US Supreme Court. Hey wait! Didn’t republicans run on repealing the ACA? Surprise! Sponsored by X Government Cars.  

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